Canadian News

Re: "Santé Québec isn't the cure for what ails health care" (Allison Hanes, Nov. 20) Read More

Steve Staios expressed his confidence in this group of Ottawa Senators during a State of the Union address at the Canadian Tire Centre on Wednesday. Read More

Surrey RCMP searched locations in Surrey, Coquitlam, New Westminster, Vancouver and Richmond seizing significant amounts of cocaine, MDMA, methamphetamine and fentanyl.

The amount of money the federal government is spending on workers’ salaries has continued to increase, according to a new report by the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), though that could change as the government plans to cut down on the size of the public service. Read More

Montreal’s executive committee chairperson called on Premier François Legault to act on the homelessness and opioid crisis on Wednesday, criticizing the premier’s perceived silence. Read More

The new Santé Québec health authority announced Wednesday it will give workers who clock extra hours in multiple hospitals an extra year to adjust to new rules limiting hours to 40 per week. Read More

It's her eighth and final budget as mayor of the city. Read More

CF Montréal signed centre back Joel Waterman to a three-year contract extension through 2027 on Wednesday. Read More

"Immaturity" is a word that comes up a lot when the Ottawa Senators crap the bed, when things go as badly as they did in Tuesday's 5-2 home-ice setback to the Edmonton Oilers. Read More

Every NHL victory is important, especially for the Canadiens, who have managed only seven wins in 19 games so far this season. Read More

A measles outbreak in New Brunswick is set to push Canada's annual case count to the highest it's been in five years, highlighting how infectious the disease is and how low vaccination rates have allowed it to take hold, says an immunologist.

Multiple bystanders told Ottawa police that Abdirahman Abdi was mentally ill moments before a violent struggle ensued, according to details heard on the third day of an inquest into the man's death. Read More

Activists at the G20 Summit, which concluded in Rio de Janeiro this week, for once had something to celebrate in the outcome of an intergovernmental meeting.  

Over half of the world’s poorest people live in G20 countries and rising inequality – both within and between nations – threatens to prevent them from living dignified lives. In recent decades the top one per cent of earners in G20 countries have seen their income share rocket, while top income tax rates on them have plummeted. And high levels of wealth inequality, gender, racial and ethnic inequality, and inequality of opportunity are blighting progress for the many.  

Brazilian President Lula da Silva used his year at the G20’s helm to push for progress on these and other critical issues. While fine words in G20 communiques do not change anything in themselves, Brazil deserves applause for using their G20 presidency to respond to people’s demands worldwide to tackle extreme inequality, hunger and climate breakdown, and particularly for rallying action on taxing the super-rich. Brazil has lit a path toward a more just and resilient world, challenging others to meet them at this critical juncture. 

In particular, G20 governments deserve praise for their ground-breaking commitment to cooperate on taxing the world’s super-rich. But this is just a start and we must not rest until the commitments become a reality that delivers real change for people and the planet. This means a global standard that sets tax rates on the super-rich high enough to dramatically reduce inequality and raise the trillions of dollars needed to tackle the climate and poverty crisis.

While the progress on international taxation is welcome, it also means that G20 governments should be championing a $5 trillion climate finance goal at the climate COP29 in Baku. How can they argue that climate justice is unaffordable with a deal to raise trillions of dollars by taxing the super-rich on the table?

Progress was also made in other areas. The Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, launched at the G20 Summit, could be a turning point in the battle against hunger and extreme poverty. Sharing proven policy solutions like cash transfers and school meals is important, but the Alliance must go further still by prioritizing transformative agriculture, racial and gender equity, land rights, and small-scale farming. It must also urgently address the devastating impacts of climate change on food systems in the Global South and confront the weaponization of hunger. Only by embracing these deeper, structural changes can we hope to tackle the root causes of hunger and poverty effectively.

As South Africa now takes over the presidency of the G20, it is more critical than ever to  continue the fight against extreme inequality, and to make concrete progress on this year’s agreements – including to tax the world’s super-rich – a reality. That would be a truly historic legacy of South Africa’s forthcoming G20 presidency.  But will South Africa offer the progressive leadership of Brazil – and even if they do, will other G20 countries follow?

The post Brazil lights a path forward – but will others follow? appeared first on rabble.ca.

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French Language Minister Jean-François Roberge is urging Quebecers to report stores that can’t serve them in French after a government survey found a majority of Montrealers and many other Quebecers are not particularly concerned by the issue. Read More

According to documents obtained by Global News, about eight trees have come down in the park, with seven obstructing roadways.

He left from Batchelor Bay on his kayak at approximately 12:40 p.m. on what was supposed to be a short paddle, according to West Vancouver police.

Before each Canadiens game at the Bell Centre, I post on X the list of NHL scouts who are watching from the press box. Read More

QUEBEC — Quebec's French language commissioner has recommended the provincial government take further steps to protect the language by reducing English teaching in CEGEPs and universities so that 85 per cent of students take their courses in French. Read More

Last week, Canada’s highest court held two days of hearings in relation to an ongoing case that challenges the constitutionality of the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA).

The act criminalizes purchasing of sexual services and gaining a material benefit from the sale of another’s sexual services. Appellants of the case argue that PCEPA violates a sex workers section seven Charter rights to liberty and security of the person. 

Groups who have mobilized against PCEPA include the Sex Workers’ Action Network (SWAN) and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. These groups say PCEPA still criminalizes sex workers and forces them into unsafe work conditions. 

Concertation des luttes contre l’exploitation sexuelle (CLES), a Quebec organization against sexual exploitation, said they hope PCEPA survives this court challenge because it criminalizes pimps and sex buyers while immunizing sex workers. 

“Canada adopted PCEPA in recognition of the fact that prostitution is violence and an obstacle to true equality between men and women,” said Jennie-Laure Sully, a community organizer at CLES. 

Organizers with sex-worker led groups say it is harmful to view sex work as inherently exploitative. 

“Arguments that sex work is inherently exploitative not only go against evidence, they reinforce assumptions and stereotypes that construct racialized sex workers as snapshots; people without a voice, without dimension and in need of saving,” said Kelly Go, program manager at SWAN. “These stereotypes increase physical violence against sex workers and render them disposable and deportable by the state in the first place. It’s important to understand migrant sex work in the context of labour rights and international labour migration.” 

However, Sully and CLES maintain that PCEPA criminalizes pimps and sex buyers. Sully said CLES has not heard of any cases of women being charged for selling their own sex acts since the law was passed in 2014.

“We celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the law because we see that it has changed the power dynamic in the sex industry and that we are moving towards better protection for women and girls,” Sully wrote in an email to rabble.ca 

Crystal Laderas, communications manager at SWAN Vancouver, said PCEPA does not translate to better protection for sex workers because it criminalizes those who do support work within the sex industry, For example, the law criminalizing third parties in sex work can affect receptionists, drivers, security staff and other workers. 

“Anti-sex work opponents are the biggest cheerleaders of PCEPA despite a decade of these laws putting workers at greater risk of violence and exploitation,” Laderas said. “It’s disappointing to see organizations that willfully ignore evidence and have a clear moral or religious bias against sex work, being granted intervenor status in this case. Meanwhile, sex workers and organizations that support migrant sex workers, including the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, have been excluded.” 

Addressing sex workers’ needs through a labour rights lens has been a demand from many organizations. In 2019, MoveUp became the first known union in Canada to publicly declare its support for the decriminalization of sex work. The union wrote on its website that labour must support all workers. 

“Sex work is work,” the union wrote. “Sex workers want rights, not rescue.” 

In an academic article published in 2021 by Social Sciences, an international peer-reviewed journal, researchers concluded that sex work and exploitation related to it comes from the exploitative relationships that exist between many workers and employers. 

Thaddeus Blanchette, Ana Paula Da Silva, and Gustavo Camargo, authors of the article, wrote that labour relations can be exploitative because a worker has to sell a large chunk of their day to whoever can buy it. 

“It seems to us that the only way to properly reform prostitution law is via the same means which labor laws in general have been reformed in the west: through the political inclusion of self-organized sex workers at the decision-making table,” the authors wrote.

The post Sex work law challenge reveals differing views on the industry appeared first on rabble.ca.